10 tactics communication 2.0 - youth medialab
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
2nd MEDIALAB Training Course Silla, 15th May 12
#youthmedialab #youthmedialabsilla
Bring them to the action
Mobilise people
Source: informationactivism.org
Strong message, clear objectives and good plan.
IDEAS:
- Create a short slogan that is easy to translate. Ask people to photograph themselves holding a sign with the slogan in their own language and send you the photo to share on your website or in a video or slideshow.
- Make a profile or a fan page on a social network site to parody a public figure you seek to influence, and ask supporters to become friends with this profile.
- Host a competition for short videos about your issue and ask people to vote on their favourites. You can hold a screening in a public building and invite local media.
- If you don’t already have a list of contacts interested in your campaign, partner with an organisation that sends out emails to its supporters.
Strong message, clear objectives and good plan.
CASE STUDY:
In 2009, MySociety launched a campaign which supported voters in the UK to send emails to their Members of Parliament (MP), demanding transparency in the use of public funds. “We send tens of thousands of email alerts every day to readers of our website TheyWorkForYou.com”.
Tools used: Custom-built content management system (CMS) and contact management system made from open source software components was used to make TheyWorkForYou. Wordpress and Facebook were also used for the MP expenses campaign.
Reach: The campaign was focused on UK citizens and politicians. The website had 500.000 visitors the month the story broke in the UK press, and it receives an average of 250.000 visitors per month.
Someone is whatching
Witness and record
Source: informationactivism.org
People have the power to capture as they happen.
IDEAS:
- You don’t need always to use video. Ask people to use their mobile phones to send photos by email or if possible by multimedia message (MMS), which can later be made into a slideshow or published on their own.
- Being able to witness events first-hand is rarely possible. You can reconstruct some events later through interviews, and by being introduced to people involved through trusted allies and contacts.
- Think about how you can explain clearly the roles of the people in it and their relationships to each other. By visually mapping these relationships you can highlight links between people, organisations, etc.
People have the power to capture as they happen.
CASE STUDY:
Two short videos showing the death of Neda Agha-Soltan during Iran’s post-election protests attained worldwide attention in June 2009.
Tools used: Mobile phone cameras, email, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, blogs
Reach: Hundreds of thousands to millions of people worldwide.
Links to learn more:- New York Times blog: http://bit.ly/TqGnG- Global Voices: http://bit.ly/FK51f- WITNESS: http://bit.ly/gtyPzABCNT
Picture it
Visualice your message
Source: informationactivism.org
Communicating creatively across different languages.
IDEAS:
- Make your own version of a tourist or city map also includes information about your specific campaign issue. Hand it out to visitors to the city, students or others who can be mobilised to take action.
- If you don’t know how to make an animated video, you can make a video from a series of still photos, adding music, subtitles and voice-over to unite the images around one story.
- Design graphic stickers that can be used to re-label products with information that corporations or institutions don’t readily make available.
- Give people cheap video cameras to record personal stories and use the videos to build an interactive map showing how different people in different regions are impacted by the same issue.
Communicating creatively across different languages.
CASE STUDY:
To inspire people to organise climate change actions around the world, 350.org created an animated video about climate change. The animation uses strong visuals and does not use any words, meaning that no one language is required to understand it. The primary concept is the number 350, which refers to “the number scientists say is the safe limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”.
Tools used: YouTube and Facebook Page with 10,000 members. Orkut, MySpace, Twitter. Zandy, an “event-organising tool like Facebook Events, translated into many different languages.”
Reach: Video had 100,000 views over one year on YouTube. Campaign is global, with nearly 30 staff and interns and close to 100 live actions planned worldwide.
No one is listening
Amplify personal stories
Source: informationactivism.org
Resonates when people are not being consulted.
IDEAS:
- Stories can be told with objects as well as words. Blank Noise posted photos of clothing that women were wearing when they were harassed.
- People can tell a personal story anonymously by mobile phone, either with a voice call or a text message. These stories can then be sent from their phones to your campaign, or uploaded directly from their phones, and shared on one website.
- Tagging, or labeling a piece of online content with a keyword, can let you aggregate many stories on one website.
- Many people in different regions can each contribute a short video or sequence of photos to make one longer video.
Resonates when people are not being consulted.
CASE STUDY:
To draw attention to laws banning women from driving cars in Saudi Arabia, Areej Khan, a Saudi artist and graphic designer living in the US, created the ‘We the Women’ campaign. The project asks women to respond to the question, “To drive or not drive?” by writing their answers on stickers that they can post in public spaces.
Tools used: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube. Stickers can be downloaded from Flickr and printed. The website used HTML, JavaScript.
Reach: Over 2000 people participated on the Facebook page in the first three months of the project (April-June 2009), with 25 sticker designs submitted.
Provoke a smile
Just add humour
Source: informationactivism.org
Good for reaching out to diverse audiences.
IDEAS:
- You can spread messages using mobile phone ringtones. After the 2004 election in the Philippines, a ringtone was made which used a recorded phone conversation with the President that appeared to provide evidence of vote-rigging, and this was re-mixed with music. It became one of the world’s most downloaded ringtones.
- Use remixed or parody images that have been posted to blogs and social network sites for your campaign by adapting them to create street art, posters, and handbills.
- In addition to creating parody websites you can make parody news websites that critique the censored media, and also give practical information and facts in a clever or surprising way.
Good for reaching out to diverse audiences.
CASE STUDY:
Españistan, The real state bubble and the Spanish crisis in comic version, by Aleix Salo.
Aleix Salo prepares the output of a comic strip set in the Spanish real estate bubble and the subsequent crisis Spain suffers from 2008.
For its launch has ben created a very interesting video that illustrates the process lived in Spain, and that in 2011 It is still suffered.
Understad your connections
Manage your contacts
Source: informationactivism.org
Connections, relationships and networks.
IDEAS:
- In addition to tracking your supporters, organise the contact information for those who have the power to make the change you want to see – even if these people are opposed to your campaign.
- Create a support-base map, of where your supporters are most concentrated, based on information they provided you with consent.
- Help supporters to organise their own campaign events by offering to connect them with other people in your campaign near to them.
- At a live event related to your campaign, ask people to sign up to receive targeted text message or email alerts that provide live reports or relay information you have already prepared.
Connections, relationships and networks.
CASE STUDY:
Kleercut is a campaign implemented by Greenpeace to end the use of virgin wood fi bre in Kimberly-Clark products. CiviCRM was used to collect contact information from people who visited the Kleercut website and to send them email alerts once or twice a month. In these alerts, people were asked to take an action, for example, to return to the Kleercut website to send a targeted email to Kimberly-Clark shareholders, or to attend a direct action near them.
Tools used: Drupal for the website and CiviCRM to manage contacts. More tools became available, like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter.
Reach: Over fi ve years of the campaign, 30,000 people signed up, with most in North America. Website was available in English and French.
Make it simple
How to use complex data
Source: informationactivism.org
Present and share complex information.
IDEAS:
- If a government makes data available on an issue but it is spread across multiple websites, you can aggregate it on your website with your own tools for searching and commenting on it.
- If you aren’t skilled at graphic design, you can pose your campaign as an invitation to others to create a visualisation or map from your data to best reach your target audience.
- You can use maps to make a network map, that illustrates the power relationships and transactions between corporations, individuals, donors, and others.
Present and share complex information.
CASE STUDY:
Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Fair Play gathers invoices and other documents that show how the Slovakian government spends its money, adds this material to a database connected to its website, and invites people to use this information to influence political change.
Tools used: Custom-built database, using open source tools (mySQL, Apache server, and PHP). Data imported from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, in Excel spreadsheets, but sometimes they needed to be scanned or retyped. Web-scrapers are used to bring in data from online sources.
Reach: The project tracks public spending in the Slovakian government. It is now expanding to track assets of Slovak members of European Parliament. During the EU funding scandal, the Fair Play website was one of the top three most visited in Slovakia.
Report it live
Use collective intelligence
Source: informationactivism.org
Reporting public events and responding.
IDEAS:
- You can use mobile reporting to draw collective attention to an issue. Ask people to answer questions related to your campaign by sending in text messages or photos with their mobile phones. You can share these reports on a website or a mobile phone accessible website.
- If you have a fast connection to the internet, you can use live video to broadcast a campaign event live to the internet with a computer, a video camera (which may be built into your computer), and a live video program like Ustream.tv or Livestream.com.
- Live reporting can keep advocates safe during a protest or action. Two tools people have used for this are Twitter and a mobile video program called Qik.com, with which advocates can share text and video updates on who may have been arrested.
Reporting public events and responding.
CASE STUDY:
Unsung Peace Heroes honoured those who worked for peace after post-election violence in Kenya in December 2007. Kenyans could nominate people and organisations by text message and email, and with paper forms at peace events. The groups Butterfly Works and Media Focus on Africa collected these nominations. Working with a local design school, Nairobits, nominations were translated, verified and added to a map, using the community reporting tool, Ushahidi.
Tools used: Ushahidi, mobile phones, Facebook, website.
Reach: National. Over 500 nominations in one month, with peaks of 80 per day after Kenyan press coverage.
Technology that listens
Let people ask the questions
Source: informationactivism.org
Getting complete information to people.
IDEAS:
- To engage audiences where a straightforward question-and-answer approach may not be persuasive, you can offer information in the form of entertaining and educational quizzes.
- Pose a question on a controversial topic and collect opinions through text or voice messages. In response, send back a fact or a resource to connect your audience to more information.
- At an action or demonstration, ask supporters to send a text message if they would like you to send them alerts during the action: about police activity, safety measures they can take, and legal or medical support.
Getting complete information to people.
CASE STUDY:
Recomendaciones para huelguistas y piquetes
http://elteleoperador.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/recomendaciones-para-huelguistas-y.html
Reveal the truth
Investigate and expose
Source: informationactivism.org
Identify, share and act on evidence.
IDEAS:
- If you want to make a video but don’t have enough video footage available, search Flickr, Google Images, or Wikipedia for open-licensed photos available for remix and reuse, and use them to edit into a video with music or a voiceover.
- Not all campaigns need a mass audience – finding the right audience matters more. You can mobilise the power of a small, passionate audience, and take your findings to key policy-makers or the press later.
- Humour, surprise and popular culture can help you reach a wider audience. You can use cartoons and street art to convey your findings in a direct way and to get your message to those without internet access.
Identify, share and act on evidence.
CASE STUDY:
Members of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) used digital video to document abusive conditions and human rights violations reported by sex workers detained in so-called ’rehabilitation’ centers in Cambodia. While local media and politicians claimed that these centers were set up to teach vocational skills, sex workers interviewed after their release and escape told personal stories of assault, rape, and denial of access to clean food, water, and medicine.
Tools used: Flip video cameras, digital video editing software (Final Cut Pro), blip.tv, YouTube.
Reach: Video launched at the International AIDS Conference in 2008. The target audience at the AIDS conference was UN agencies, but the video was shown to several thousand people during the event.
informationactivism.org
